I recently purchased a new HDTV for my reference media room, which meant it was time to play a game of musical chairs with my former reference display having to be moved to my bedroom system. There was just one problem, my bedroom HDTV was of the 27-inch variety and mounted on an articulating arm where as my former reference display brought in to replace it was 42-inches. I needed a new mount, so I called the good people at Sanus and they suggested their newly released, or should I say updated, VMPL50A tilting wall mount.

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The VMPL50A is a tilting wall mount for HDTVs that retails for $149.99 and is suitable for displays ranging in size from 32 to 70 inches with weights up to a staggering 150 pounds. The sleek, and slim, mount is made from solid, heavy gauge steel and is finished in a semi gloss black so as to blend in with your display's natural shadow and chassis color when mounted on your wall. The VMPL50A has a few key features that make it unique and/or competitive with other mounts available today, the first of those features being what Sanus calls ProSet. ProSet is a series of finely tuned manual controls, ala an Allen wrench, that allow you to fine tune the height and level of your HDTV once you've mounted it -a useful feature that I'll get into in a moment. Next up is Sanus' Virtual Axis which is a fancy way of saying you can literally tilt your HDTV down or up with the touch of a single finger. The VMPL50A's brackets that affix to the back of your HDTV also have a very nice safety feature in that they feature push button snaps, which lock them in place as opposed to bars or lock and key systems you'll find elsewhere. My old tilting wall mount had a bar with a small lock affixed to the end of it which secured my HDTV to the mount and to the wall itself, problem was when it came time to move the display and the small key was no where to be found -doh! The Sanus locking tab system ensures foul ups like the one I just described can't happen. Lastly, because the VMPL50A can accommodate such a wide range of HDTVs big and small its elongated rail system make off center mounting easy to disguise thanks to the amount of lateral travel afforded to you.

Installing the VMPL50A is easy enough for a single person, as I was able to follow the very simple and straightforward instructions with ease. Requiring a level and a modest power drill to pre-drill holes for the large support screws, everything else needed for installation is included in the box. If you don't have a level you can turn your iPhone into one by going to the App store and downloading the Sanus Install Tool Kit App, which includes a digital level (that actually works) as well as a grip of other useful tools that make installing your Sanus HDTV mount a breeze. The App is free and huge fun even after you've installed your Sanus HDTV mount. With my iPhone and drill in tow I was able to install the main support rails to my bedroom wall in under 20 minutes with the rest of the installation, which included mounting the brackets to the back of my HDTV and hanging it on the rails like a picture, taking an additional 10.

A few weeks after I initially installed the VMPL50A in my bedroom my area suffered a horrendous wind and rain storm that just hammered my aging home. When things died down and life returned to normal I realized that the wind was so strong that it actually managed to cause my home to shift a bit. This shift was evident in the new "tilt" my bedroom HDTV was now exhibiting thanks to Mother Nature (it's mounted on the opposite side of an exterior wall after all). Thankfully, I didn't have to remove the VMPL50A from my wall, instead I grabbed the included Allen wrench (that I happened to tape to the back of my HDTV) and re-leveled the display via small adjustments to the brackets themselves -very cool. And, thanks to the VMPL50A's snap locking system my HDTV didn't move along the main support rails at all during the violent weather event.

Read about the high points and low points of the VMPL50A mount on Page 2.